Obnoxious
by Haloalkane68
Summary: Peter breaks his promise just to have Gwen again. But Gwen doesn't want to see his face for now she has a terrible secret.
1. Prologue

**Discllaimer : I don't own anything related to spiderman.**

* * *

PROLOGUE

* * *

PETER'S P.O.V

* * *

The sky is bleeding. I bow my head and pick up my jacket torn from the last encounter. I look at the mirror. I see my brown eyes stealing glances from myself. I don't know what to do. I jump out of the window beside the movie poster. The rain feels like stinging needles, dropping down my face, drenching my clothes. I do not care. I am already cold. I head to the church.

The church is buzzing. People clad in black move, roam around the front porch. I can see policemen, but it hardly matters. I clench my fists. The sky is bleeding still. I climb onto the church's roof stealthily. I have an order; I do not mean to show myself. I wait.

Then I see a figure, standing alone, running her eyes around nervously, waiting for somebody. I keep watching from a distance. I cannot go close; I have an order. My jaw stiffens and a lump builds in my throat. She is wearing a black overcoat. She has a polka-dotted scarf around her neck. She is holding an umbrella against her collar bone and has her hair falling ever so carelessly over her face. She has her large eyes brimming with tears. She is Gwen Stacy. She searches for the last time in the crowd for someone who never arrived, and goes into the church. I sigh.

After ages she comes out. The crowd is stifling now, as she pushes her way through. I stay where I was, watching. She still thinks the person will arrive. She looks up at the bleeding sky, her eyes so naïve and hopeful. Raindrops fall on her face. I crouch further behind. I feel the texture of the brick underneath my fingers. I claw at them, make a few dents.

Then I go, my heart burning.

* * *

The days pass. The sky is bleeding again. I sit beside the window. Raindrops roll down the window pane. I exhale. I remember the figure in the overcoat. I sense a little stab of pain.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The raindrops were much too harder. The sky is thundering. All of a sudden there is a knock at the door. I get up to my feet. I open the door and find a slightly drenched figure at the step. The figure wraps her umbrella and stares at her feet. I know her; she is Gwen Stacy. I know she is devastated; I know she has lost her father. I do not know what to say. I cannot remember a word of consolation. Time stands still. I look at her. I notice she has let her hair down, how she has parted her bangs to one side, how the tip of her nose has reddened from crying. She gazes up and pierces through me. I bring my own eyes down but not before she asks me a question.

'Where've you been?'

I say nothing. I hear my ears ringing. She tells me a million things. She cries. I freeze. I cannot meet her eye. I stare down at my shoes. I open up my mouth to tell her what she needs to hear. No voice comes out. I clench my fists again. My helplessness brings into a strange kind of paralysis. She keeps speaking about things I saw that day, she expects replies but I stand against the door, immobile as if made of stone. She is talking about the funeral; she is telling me how that person never came. A tear rolls down her cheek. Anyhow, I reach out my hand and wipe it away.

'I can't do this anymore.'

She looks bewildered. She thinks she has not heard correctly. I raise my voice. My eyes well up. I feel I am tearing up my skin, cutting through the bone. She sobs. I turn into stone again. With a swift turn she walks down the stairs. She stops once and looks back. She says she knows why I am doing this. I say nothing. She assumes what she says is true and disappears into the rain.

* * *

I am at school, poring over a book. The printed letters hold no meaning. The teacher's voice does not reach my ears. I think about the thieves and muggers I deal with all night. I think about the chasing policemen. The teacher slaps me lightly at the back of my head. He knows my eyes are unfocused. The classroom turns at me. I shield my face with the book. I notice she is looking at me too. I stare back. She glances away. The class continues.

The hour ends. I walk out, pulling my hood up. I do not want anyone to see the bruises on my face, nor to ask about it. I know people have started suspecting whether I have involved myself in some sort of gang. I ignore the hushed whispers and stealthy glances across me and keep walking. I reach my locker. From the corner of my eye I can see her standing beside hers. I suddenly forget what I need to take out. Struggling with my mind and with a slow hand, I pull out a fat book. I know she is waiting there, waiting for me to explain the turn of things. Fifteen minutes pass. Neither do I move, nor does she. Then she starts going. At that instant I turn and reach out my hand to stop her. But she goes much too far by that time.

* * *

A month goes by. We remain as we were. I sit at a roadside café alone, reading a science weekly and sipping coffee, lost in my thoughts. I see through the glass door. A minute later my eyes fall upon a figure passing by, clad in an overcoat and skirt. She has her hair neatly tied at the back into a ponytail and a rosy blush on her cheeks and carries a bouquet of flowers. I think it is a kind of trance. I think my mind is playing tricks with me. I put the book down, leave the hot coffee as it is and push open the glass door. I cannot help but follow the figure. I do not care whether it is a figment of my imagination.

The figure is not a dream. She goes behind the church into the cemetery. She stops in front of her father's grave. She puts down the flowers. The place is empty, with not a single being at sight. I crouch and hide myself behind a bush. She falls on her knees and touches the grass. Then she cries. Not in soft sobs, but out loud, loud enough for me to hear. It wrenches my heart – the sound of her voice, the loud abrupt hiccups in between the sobs as she cries like a little child lost in a swarm of crowd, bereft of anyone she knows, shouting at the top of her lungs but no one ever looks down. I close my eyes and grit my teeth, unable to bear. I wait for somebody to come, to help her, to console her. But no one does.

I stand up and begin to walk against my will. I put a hand on her shoulder. Her large eyes look up. She does not ask me where I came from or how I knew she is there. For a moment she forgets we are not supposed to be standing like this. For a moment I do too. She buries her face into my chest. I run my fingers through her golden hair. We clasp each other on the windswept ground, as though we will be blown away if we let go. Her sobs reduce to mere whispers. She gazes at me with wide inquisitive eyes. I know I need to explain, but some why I just do not think I have a voice.

* * *

The sky is vermillion now. The dusk is descending. The winds are heavy. It has grown cold. I feel the chill down my spine and a surge of realization in my head. I think we have been standing there for far too long. I feel I am betraying myself. My chest grows warm with her head resting upon it. But now I think I have come way too far. I tell her to go home; she replies she is not going to leave me anymore. She says I am hurting her. I open my mouth to speak. And again, no words come out.

Slowly I pull her hand off me. I bring my face close to hers. I can feel her breath on my face and she can feel mine. I cup her face in my palms and kiss her. I do not kiss her – I crush her lips. I smell the scent; taste the flavour in my mouth for the last time. She does not let go. I give her a delicate push and draw my face back. She is slightly embarrassed. Self-consciousness pours over her. She twists her leg to conceal a spot of cranberry juice spilt on her skirt. I pretend not to notice. To my surprise I do not move an inch. Silence grows in between us.

'I should go.'

She nods. I turn my back at her. I trot a few yards, another lump building in my throat. She calls my name. I stop, but I do not look back. I know I will not be able to leave if I do. I want to run back, outstretch my arms. But I keep walking away.

This should have ended here. This should have been what it all was. But unfortunately..._  
_


	2. Blindfolded

BLINDFOLDED

* * *

GWEN'S P.O.V

* * *

The days have been passing like poetry. However I feel tons lighter than what I used to. Maybe it is because of what happened about a week ago. I was in the literature class. I was barely concentrating. It is no surprise; I haven't mentally attended any class since the funeral. My grades are slipping like sand. Time is running out and soon I will be passing out of high school, and if my grades remain as bad as they are right now, I will not be standing a chance at a good university. My dip in rank has been labelled as _going through tragedy_. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. I know I am being quite dispassionate about my career, about building all the science stuff I've been dreaming of for years. My internship at Oscorp doesn't make many things good for me, and Connors' recommendation letter lost all its worth after the lizard incident.

I am sorry I deviated from my point. This is not what I think I'm going to talk about. I am talking about the very literature class. I must've started to think a lot these days, especially about things that don't really matter. Right then I had my mind squished between doubt and anxiety when Peter walked in, late as usual. I kept gazing at the book, so hard that the words somewhat appeared swelled up. The teacher told him off, asked him not to make promises he couldn't keep. Promises promises promises. I hated that word. But then he gave an answer I couldn't stop smiling at for the rest of the time.

'But those are the best kind.'

Right now standing on the pavement, I wonder what he really meant. I think about it. I think about it a lot. He must've thought about it too, mustn't he? I inexplicably feel better. The chronic sickness vanishes along with the very impulse. I try and reconnect his answer to what happened at the cemetery and at his doorstep, and come up with nothing. I think the noise around is distracting. I plug earphones into my ears as I wait for a taxi. The song puts an instant grin on my face. My mind tries to slam that I do not know why the smile crops up, but I know better than to listen to my mind.

_Wherein you are, my heart feels_

_My own bliss and my being..._

I think it's so very clichéd and corny, and yet so amazing. I get into a taxi.

It is past 7 p.m. I reach home. I look up at our apartment. The windows are dark. I sense something uncanny. I know how trouble never gives a hint before knocking at the door. But I keep the idea of trouble at bay, wanting it to wrestle neither with my thoughts so full of him nor with the exuberant flow of things. I assume my brothers are waiting to pull the lights on any moment I enter and surprise me. I try to remember whether it is my birthday. I notice I have lost track of days; I find it difficult to make the month that is going on. The blame goes blatantly on my growing interest in quantum physics. I grin at myself. I take the elevator.

I stand at the doorstep and ring the doorbell. I miss the times when the first thing I would see as soon as I enter was father's figure, reading a newspaper, talking of law, and more towards the end, about the masked vigilante. Ten minutes pass. Nobody comes to open the door. I twist the doorknob. It hasn't been locked at all. I push the unlocked door open, already starting to mouth a word of scolding. I can't understand how anyone can keep the door open like that, that too with the recent string of disturbing incidents in the city. But then I remember about the surprise my brothers might have kept for me. I nod and bite my lip into a small smile, trying to play-act as ignorant as possible.

Opening the door takes my breath away. There is nothing of what I expect. I remain stunned for a while. I stand alone on the doormat. I can see no one. I watch the trail of blood on the carpet with horror. Glass plates and crockery are fallen shattered at one corner. Two of the chairs are upturned beside the dining table. Somebody has smashed the lights. One of the window panes are broken in a way as if a cat intruded in. I call everybody one after the other even as my voice fast starts disappearing – mother, my brothers, and even father – but get no answer. Panic bursts into my veins. I start to feel dizzy all of a sudden. I feel clueless, scared, horrified. There is only another name I can think of at the moment and even though I was unsure how fruitful it might be, I let my last scream go.

'Peter!'

An icy hand clasps my mouth from behind. I jump out of fear. Before I can retaliate or even move an inch, the icy hands blindfold me. The hands are fast, faster than the impulses of my brain. I can hear someone lock the door. I can hear my heart throbbing violently in my chest. I feel a hot cigarette butt burn the skin at my arm. I flinch. Those hands have abducted – and probably killed – my whole family. And he had been waiting for me. I wonder how the neighbours couldn't know anything. Then I hear a husky sneering voice, a cold breath near my neck and a sinister presence grasping my shoulders tight. I start wriggling like an earthworm caught on a fishing hook.

The voice asks me about the New York hero, spider man.

'What the heck are you talking about –' I stutter, holding back the wild hysteria and pathetically trying to play it cool.

One of the hands slaps me across the face, and the other shoves me against the wall. Something crashes to the floor, something made of glass. I collapse against the wall. Glass shards pierce into my left arm. I feel blood rushing to my face where I got slapped, and oozing out of my arm. I feel tears in my eyes – tears of pain – pain about the fact that what just crashed was a photograph of father and me.

The voice snickers, 'Don't you know? As a matter of fact you just called his name.' I can sense the breath on my face again. The breath is as cold as the voice. My heart races fervently. I did it. I did it again. I have put him in danger. I have revealed his identity. I press my lips together, groping into my pocket for my cell phone but it seems to have suddenly disappeared. Those hands are pressing against my body, clinging to my wrists. I scream incoherently at the person to make its intentions clear and fling my legs but they never touch, let alone hit, anything made of flesh and blood.

'You know what I want. By the end of this month you'll watch with your own eyes how the boy you so love meets his untimely death. And you know what's funny? _You_ will lead me up to him.'

'No! No, you friggin' bastard! Don't you dare – what've you done to my family? You f – '

I hear another snicker.

'You think you'll scream and the neighbours will hear you and you're _so_ wrong,' says the voice, 'breathe a word to anybody and I'll parcel the dead bodies.'

I gasp. But I am somehow assured that my family is alive. I do not hear the door open, neither fading footsteps nor movement near the window, but I am certain that the stranger isn't around anymore. My hands reach out to the back of my head and disentangle the knot of the cloth over my eyes. I wonder why I never bothered to do it while the stranger was talking to me. I sense the terrible helplessness, the immobility... I do not know what to do. I do not know whether I will ever be able to see those smiling homely faces again. For once and for all everything had started to move onto the right track. We had reconciled, didn't we, after weeks – no, not weeks, months maybe, I don't know, it seemed ages to me. Why it need to break apart again? I don't appear to know. But what I do is that I need to stay away – stay away as far as I possibly can – from Peter. I will lock myself up in this empty apartment. No, I shake my head, he will know and he will break in. I rack my brains so hard but come up with nothing. I curse at myself. I have seen _enough_ deaths. My family might be the next. But not Peter. I can know that the person is out for _his_ blood, and my family is just bait.

I feel the terror creeping up on me. I am too terrified to move. I lie on the floor in a foetal position, crumpling up. I abstain myself from thinking he will soon appear at my window. I am not a believer of telepathy, but I know he certainly will if my mind doesn't halt.

Fortunately he doesn't turn up that night. I lie where I was. I exhale.

* * *

I am sitting on a stool, digging a hole into my notebook, in a bar. I think it is the last place Peter will ever try to search me in. However, I wish I can say the same about the stranger. Even though I cannot see it, I feel something lurking into my shadow, an invisible weight on my shoulders. A day has passed in between, and right now it must be quite late at night. My breathing is shallow and tired. I am exhausted. I am blinking too hard. I am slightly embarrassed of how out of place I look sitting on a stool in a bar with a notebook in hand. My mind traces backwards. I am shocked I cannot remember anything. The incident with the stranger seems to have happened years ago. I shudder. My shuddering looks like an impulsive reflex. The barman gapes at me, puzzled.

He offers me a shot. I decline politely. The loud music transforms into painful throbbing in my head. Some drunken men pass by, throwing me dirty glances. They gather around the seats near me. I scrawl vigorously on my notebook trying to avoid the crude comments about me I unintentionally overhear. Till the point when a groggy yellow-eyed man hastily finishes his foamy beer and drawls, 'Why sit alone, baby, come and join us.'

'Sounds great, doesn't it? It's been days I haven't had a pretty night!' he continues, with added gestures. Vulgar gestures. I cringe and look away.

'Yeah!'

'_Yeah_!'

I render a deaf ear and put my head down into my arms, as his peers keep shouting and laughing aloud and egging him on. One of the men, who has been sitting the closest to me pinches my waist. 'Stay away!' I fling my hard cover notebook at them in defence like a Frisbee, and squeeze my way out. The stairs are slippery. I walk down, my gait so unstable that it looked I am doing a ridiculously odd-looking dance number. A severe ache starts at the back of my head. I blame the chronic depression that has been growing on me like a parasite since that night. I head to the washroom.

The washroom is empty. My steps stumble on the white glossy floor. I think I am about to faint. I look at the mirror. Wide blackened eyes stare back at me. I close them. I drop my cell phone into the toilet and flush it out. I gaze at the white spotless sink. I am definitely hallucinating. I can see blood flowing down the tap – hot deep crimson blood – splattering around, staining the floor, spraying at my face and soaking my clothes. It is repulsive. I jump back in horror. I am definitely hallucinating. And if I am not, I think I know what awaits me.

I hear the door open. I make a swift turn even though I am fully acquainted with the fact that the stranger is a thousand times faster than I ever was. I hear the mirror smash behind my back. I know the music is too loud to catch the sound of breaking glass. The music is too loud to catch my screams as well. I realize I have missed the chance to see its face; it has been a mistake on my part to turn rather than to look into the mirror at the first place. By now I am sure the person is something supernatural, much like a gust of wind. He blindfolds me again before I can do anything, clasps my wrists before I can open the knot, and slams my head against the wall squeezing my throat before I can barely catch my breath.

'You've been hiding yourself from him in the most pitiable way possible?' the voice barks, no more cold, but infuriated. Unlike last time, the breath is hot, feral and hurried.

'Who the hell are you –' I choke over, trying to break free the grip around my neck. With all the strength I have, I pull on to free my windpipe from the rough manly fingers round my neck, my legs pushing against the wall. Footsteps. Somebody else walked in too. The stranger isn't supposedly attacking alone. The latter being never assails me, and as I close my eyes I assume it just stands at a corner, watching pieces fall into their places.

'Oh, you forgot me?' the voice returns to its usual cold sarcastic self. I continue wriggling under its grasp, until it puts a handkerchief over my face. Chloroform? I'm not sure. But whatever it is, it knocks out all my senses almost instantaneously.

* * *

It is too dark to see. I am in a closed room. I am not sure whether I have seen the room before. I realize I am still blindfolded. I sense rusty iron chains around my wrists and ankles. The stranger has bound me. It hurts to blink. My left eye is swollen and probably black. I have a painful bump at the back of my head. The moment I think I am alone, I hear a rocking chair creak. I crawl away like a fish out of water. The floor is stone cold. I notice I am too weak to even stand.

I listen to the footsteps carefully. I try to crawl further. It is useless. The stranger clutches a bunch of my hair and pulls me upwards. I writhe as I move, try to take my hands out from the back even as my skin grazes under the iron. My wrists burn, but that doesn't stop me from struggling. My eyes are raw and itchy and burning. Tears leak out from the corners before I can hold them back. Helplessly I think of Peter swinging out of thin air and putting me aside from the growing torture. But I am apparently alone. And I want to be. He shouldn't come. He mustn't come.

'Do you know what suffering is?'

'You took my family. You're asking me what suffering is?' I speak in between my instinctive sobs.

'You understand nothing,' says the voice. I sense something sharp at my neck – something like a knife – or probably a knife. The icy sharp metal chills me to the bone. The knives move down my neck – five of them or so they feel – along the curve of my body, towards my thighs and reach my ankle. One of them digs slightly into the skin at my ankle – very slightly. The knives start to move up along my curve again, almost in a coy, playful manner, leaving a trail of goosebumps, when something strikes my mind and I realize these aren't knives – but claws. Not ordinary claws, but long, razor-sharp, and inorganic, made of metal, probably steel.

'Do you know what suffering is?' the monster's voice sneers again. The claws are pressing against my chest.

'Be a human and you'll know,' I murmur stupidly and stubbornly.

'Do you know what suffering is?' it keeps on asking. I notice how its voice is slowly rising.

'Let me go!'

'DO YOU KNOW WHAT SUFFERING IS?'

'Just let me go!'

The claws plunge deep into my stomach. I am startled at first, but then the pain begins to burst in my nerves, and it is unbearable, numbing. I gasp in shock. I almost bend over in acute ache. The stranger throws me on the floor. I double up. My breathing is fast and heavy. Blood runs through my fingers as my hands clasp the wound. My throat dries up. Time seems to be running out. I can taste rust and salt. Blood. Blood fills up my entire mouth. I gag and choke. I feel feverish. I listen to the loud ringing noises in my ears. A pool of blood grows underneath where I lie, soaking my clothes.

'You don't know what suffering is. You never did. Now you will.'

'You – you killed me,' I say almost inaudibly, panting and shuddering. I feel the sharp tinges of pain even as I unevenly breathe. My heart beat slows down with each passing second. I could have never foretold this – that I'm to be murdered by a growling invisible wraith's fickle moods. In spite of the cloth over my eyes I decide to keep them open lest I go to sleep and never wake up again. Peter's goofy smile flashed in all of a sudden notwithstanding my efforts to keep him away from thoughts – oh god – I will have to get through this... but my breath begins to wane before I can even make up my mind. I clench my teeth and push my lazy heart to keep beating.

'You think I killed you and you're so wrong again,' the voice whispers, 'dare try to hide and you know what comes next.'

* * *

The morning light peeps in. I wake up as soon as my back starts burning with the heat. I blink. I breathe. Nothing seems wrong with me. I am lying on the floor of my own room. Last night seemingly happened here. But it wasn't a hallucination. I am no more blindfolded. The chains are gone. I can see the same blood soaked clothes, a ragged scar on my abdomen, dried blood on my face and on the floor. The shock is paralysing. More than the fact that I am alive, the shock weighed more towards how the stranger healed a mortal wound within hours.

The stranger's punishments are way severe than I thought. Last night a small assumption brushed past my mind that he must've killed me as a part of some sort of a plan to have Peter weeping over my dead body and hounding the stranger in an utter desire to avenge – and thus – a way to get to Spider man. But I was wrong. It was just a punishment. A minimal fraction of the horror. I feel I've underestimated the stranger. Right now I feel more terrified than I have ever been in my life. Especially for Peter.


	3. Figure

FIGURE

* * *

PETER'S P.O.V

* * *

It seems Gwen has suddenly disappeared into thin air. It has been two days I haven't seen her. I've already checked at her apartment numerous times. I thought she must be sick, and came up to her bedroom window packing it as one of the usual surprises – well – er – it's only that I love how she looks up from her books and brightens up on finding me there, and then it never matters how unsurprising and predictable it has now become. This time however, the window was shut. In fact, all the rooms looked empty. On asking the neighbours told me that she and her family had been off to London. It struck me as something fishy, for all I knew about her was that she isn't of the kind who would leave their Senior Year midway unless there has been a huge emergency, and if there has been one, she couldn't have lived without telling me.

The morning tea tastes too bitter. And looks too bleak. I blame my mind which isn't seemingly staying with the London theory. I peek at the newspaper when my breath paused for a moment on an article –

**NEW MENACE IN THE CITY?**

**A man found dead in the bathroom of a bar at 42****nd**** Street, near Manhattan. By the looks, it doesn't seem half as an ordinary murder, with the body mauled and mutilated. The culprit most likely seems to be animalistic, somewhat close to what the notorious Lizard had been. However the NYPD quoted that Dr. Curtis Connors is still locked in a high-security prison cell. Then has he escaped under their noses, or is it a new monster, or simply an animal? Recent reports suggested...**

I stop smacking my lips and ponder over it for a moment. My usual compliments (and often lies) about the breakfast Aunt May has prepared come up a little slowly and far less enthusiastically. 'Best thing I had this week...' I start but then wane off into my thoughts. The murder indeed appears uncanny. From what I know about Dr. Connors, he had never been anything close to being a psychopath. He didn't want to avenge, just wanted to take his eccentric plan a horrible step further.

An abrupt clunk of china that Aunt May drops, pulls me out of my thoughts. I dig into the food again.

'You're getting late, Peter.'

Or maybe I'm thinking too much. Maybe the newspaper had exaggerated things. Maybe it was just an animal.

'Oh, oh yeah,' I trail off checking the wristwatch, and hurtle towards the side of the table to collect my bag and skateboard. I create a mess in the name of finishing the breakfast but as usual make up for it, planting a good-bye kiss on her cheek, and rush to the door.

'Be safe, Peter,' she whispers.

'Yeah.'

'And be a little early today.'

'Okay,' I nod sincerely while tying the shoelaces. Sure, she reminds me I'm not invincible. Sooner or later I've got to bend my knees before her food. Well, except those meatloaves. Once my newly- acquired spider powers made me go into a tizzy and say otherwise. And how I suffered, having them daily for two successive weeks. They had almost robbed my buds the power to taste. I sigh and smirk as I remember those days.

I walk down the footpath. I ought to be early enough to reach school in time, I think. And if not, I surely have my alter ego to boost my speed. I glance down at my cell phone to check for Gwen's message if any. There is none. I exhale disappointedly. Now I need to write her letters to keep in touch. I grin. A man who passes by me takes it as a greeting and grins back. I only stop short of stifling a laugh. I pause for a while. The laughter vanishes. Things aren't as simple as I want them to be. They certainly aren't. I stir myself and force my imagination to assume she is right now strolling along the London Bridge.

A minute later, I hear police sirens. A number of vans whiff past me. Standing by the grocery shop, I watch them speeding down the road and turn left. In a knee-jerk reaction I sprint into the nearest alley, pushing past the lazy and slightly bewildered morning crowd. Oh man, this will be missing me my first two classes, however, it has been such a long time since I've attended them that I've quite forgotten what they were. I glimpse around to see whether anybody is looking over, and once I'm sure of my eyesight, I hang my backpack and skateboard over a desolated steel ladder and pull on the mask. Climbing up to the roof of the building I watch the vehicles storm towards north. I crouch on the parapet in the perfect arachnid pose I'm so fond of, and targeting a higher building, unleash the biocables into the air.

'Here goes spider man!'

How I love saying these lines, which neither mean anything nor can be heard. Weirdest part is, I take cues from children who dance around with the picture of my mask on their T-shirts and pyjamas, and at times even from Flash, who is – er – a bit too violent and overgrown to be considered a child. I wonder how it will hit the high school bully on face if he gets to know the face behind the mask he so adores. It might still not do me a world of good, though. But that is if it ever happens. Meanwhile, my responsibility has been drastically losing me my sanity. Bah, I must stop this inane monologue and focus on the blaring sirens. Barring Gwen's abrupt departure to London and suspicions about the bathroom murderer, the day is boringly usual – I am late, I'm running after police cars, and I can predict I'll have at least a single bullet shot at me for exactly nothing, and a punch on the face as soon as I reach the school corridor for reasons alike.

Asking the police where they are heading to will be a waste since I am infamous enough to make them deviate from route and chase me instead. So I decide to find it out myself. It doesn't take me much time to overtake the vans, but considering those arrest warrants I try my best to remain in the shadows as I swing past. Far ahead I can see more of the NYPD, circling around what looks like a museum. I pull up and halt, flexing my palms while sticking to the building's wall. Some of the policemen notice my spandex-clad existence, but surprisingly don't shoot. Apparently they need my help. I grit my teeth. Hypocrites.

I can make out it is about a thief, the typical kind of weirdo who thinks himself to be too clever for his own good and leave a forewarning prior to the theft. Catching thieves is usually fun. My first encounter with one had been admittedly enjoyable, and that is apart from the fact that I messed up a giant sting operation. However it is a pity that my spider senses cannot trace them. So I begin in a pretty pathetic way, glancing into each window. And there're hundreds of them, maybe thousands if I count the back side. Oh boy. My own idea feels so repulsive that instead of speeding up the quest, I sigh and slow down. But I'm fortunate enough. On the twentieth floor, one of my careless peeks catches a figure that doesn't quite give an impression of being a security guard.

I climb up on the ledge. Now let me be honest. I've been expecting a straw-haired unshaven guy with a mask on his face cut out of a woollen skiing cap, hastily sawing through the locker and the like. But it turns out to be something way different. I peep in to see a young woman in a black spandex suit, precisely tackling through the haphazard mesh of lasers connected to the alarm warning system, to get to a diamond kept on a pedestal. Her movement is unnaturally flexible and her gait so feline, she has straight silvery hair to the shoulders (or maybe it is a wig, who knows), a black mask to cover the eyes, a sharp feminine jaw line and a suit cut so low from up the front that it is almost provocative.

'Holiday's over,' I call out, jumping down the window but sticking to the wall lest those alarm beams intrude into my time with criminals. I catch her attention but instead of a shocked surrendered look that I almost expect, she gives me a mysteriously crooked smile. I stay where I was, while she walks up to me, dodging the beams in an overtly casual manner, and tiptoes through the hall as if stepping on stones across a brook.

She rests a hand on my shoulder. 'I think I know who you are.'

'It doesn't go the same for me, Miss Burglar.'

'It's curious,' she speaks in a way as if I never spoke, 'why will a hero require a mask?'

'It requires being a hero to know.'

'You're a fantasy,' she murmurs into my ear and holds to my wrists harmlessly, 'a crazy fantasy.' I think I feel something cool over my thigh but I guess it is either her suit or the fact that I am sweating too much all of a sudden.

'That's enough flattering,' I scoff. My voice shakes. Such never happens with me. She is the thief caught at the scene of crime knowing she can't escape and I am the one who's nervous. That is incredibly stupid.

'What's your name?' I ask irrelevantly.

'Have you ever heard of the story of the man consumed by the flames of his own regret and desire?'

'No,' I snap.

'Neither have I, but I suppose it must be interesting.'

'Shall I consider what you spoke just now as pure nonsense?'

'Sure,' she lets out a cackle of laughter, 'I won't be devastated about it.'

'What's your name, huh?' I ask again.

'This one is devastating indeed, and you expect I'll answer it.'

'I'm not asking for your identity, just the name.'

'I call myself the Black Cat.'

'New York's becoming a city of spandex-clad creeps, isn't it?'

'Uh huh,' she purrs.

'Well, then let's go now.'

'Where?'

'To prison.'

'I don't have a mood to.'

'You think you can escape?' I question over-confidently, bordering on mock. It's cool enough to for a thief to talking trash and walking in suits like me, but surely, that isn't half as enough to get them past spider man. Seriously.

She taps me lightly on the cheek, 'I _am _escaping.'

'Then with utter disappointment I'll have to tell you that you are trapped.'

She brings her face so close to mine that I began suspecting whether she can see my eyes through the lenses, 'Look down, baby, it's you who are.'

It is ridiculous. I've no idea how she did that. And how my spider sense betrayed me. I gaze at the mesh of web which has stuck my whole right leg to the wall, and leaked out of my own web shooters. I am flabbergasted. I push against the wall but can't free my leg. I realize the actual strength of the bio cables for the first time. She only stands at a distance and watches the fun, laughing in her cackling feline way at my tomfoolery. Indifferently enough to cause an effect, she brings up her hand and touches one of the reds beams with her pinkie finger. The alarms ring out. Instantly I can hear the policemen marching towards the door like military horsemen. In the mean time, she hops towards the diamond and shoves it into her pocket.

'You're all the chaos I needed to move out in quiet, spider man, I render my thanks,' she says.

'Heartiest welcome, but I think they caught you in the camera anyway!' I shout out in almost my own consolation, still struggling with the web.

'Good bye, spider man.'

As soon as she jumps out of the widow, the police break in. For a moment they point their guns at me, thinking to be somebody else but then appear as befuddled as I am. As a final try, I push as hard as I can against the wall, and given that the web has now partially dissolved, I come off balance and free to the ground, along with a load of debris and concrete. To my annoyance, I hear a series of camera clicks and looking up I notice they have straightened their guns again, with an unmistakable no- nonsense expression on their faces.

'Freeze!'

'Sorry,' I leap up on the ledge in a split second before they can get a proper aim at me for my daily dose of bullet.

I've been doped by a thief. A thief. Shame.

* * *

The day has indeed been a big bad blotch on spider man's résumé. But in spite of so many things in my mind wrestling with each other to gain prominence, I want to check over at Gwen's apartment again, especially after the asking I did at school which went useless. It is not only me who seems worried. Mr. Toulson, the chemistry professor who preferred Gwen over others most of the time (and often very annoyingly and unfairly; basically I want to say that he's the reason I come 'second' in class), looked equally puzzled about her disappearance, and was about to ask someone sooner or later about it. I even made a mistake to ask Flash, for I thought he is supposed to be tutored by her every Thursday, and he barked at me in reply, most probably under a vendetta resembling the one the police shares to the core with my alter ego. I ducked the usual punch, since I didn't have time to entertain and hurt and humiliate myself in front of his peers. Also, I thought I've had enough humiliation for a day.

I gaze up. The apartment is as usual. Dark, locked and empty.

But wait.

The curtains are drawn this time. I may be wrong. But I do think the curtains are drawn this time.

I pause. I am certain. The curtains _are_ drawn this time. Last day, they were tucked up at the corners.

I sigh.

The nauseating feeling of something being wrong just doesn't leave me. I wonder whether I should break into somebody's apartments just to clarify my baseless recurrent doubts. The paranoia about Gwen has taken a toll on me, so much so, that I am imagining dust-smeared curtains being tucked up and pulled over again. The paranoia senses like a concussion. I'm definitely going mad, mouthing inane monologues in my mind, thinking of an animal of being a monster, getting duped by thieves and chalking out weird conclusions of Gwen's trip to London.

Crap. I just remember I've forgotten about Aunt May asking me to come home early today. Sliding my irksome ideas to one side, I rush through the pavement. Without taking a taxi and keeping my super humanity aside, it takes me a lot more time than I expect. As soon as I turn to the familiar lane my mind begins some excuses and I plan to start off with a hurried sort of voice saying I got late buying eggs, knowing it is the only thing in the world that can save me from the folded-armed demanding that is to follow. As I halt in front of the stairs I see her moving to and fro along the balcony, her arms akimbo. She is fuming.

'Hey,' my plans fail and I start with the lamest tone I know, rubbing my fist with the other palm.

'Do – you – remember what I told you this morning?'

This is one of the good and bad aspects of Aunt May's temper. Her fury just can't intimidate anybody; there is always an air of kindness and buried sympathy that remains, and which is often responsible for shameless smiling under my breath when she scolds. As for the bad part, she has many a time taken advantage of her disposition. This is the world I've been witnessing and trying to change over the year, and all I've seen is it transitioning from bad to worse, especially after the dire punishment Uncle Ben got for standing by what had been right.

And remembering him only stabs further at the part of my psyche that has already been dead.

'Peter, is something bothering you?'

She knows. She knows everything. She knows I am at sea. She can read me. Maybe she knows my secret too. But she won't say, she won't admit it.

'No, nothing, I just – uh, slight headache, that's it,' I ramble on, bowing my head to avoid the revelatory eye contact.

Aunt May tries to regain the disgruntled tone and expression, but it turns out to be one of her usual miserable failures. 'No more talk, Peter, you've already got me late enough for a typical celebrity entry in an anniversary party.'

'Whose anniversary is it?'

'My boss's cousin's maternal grandparents.'

'Do I need to go?' I almost groan in response, even before I try and draw up the tedious family tree in my mind.

'Of course you do, Peter. This might get me a promotion, you understand?'

'You don't need to do this Aunt May.'

I come up a bit too bluntly. My voice changes from submissive and excusable to firm and authoritative. There is a guilty glint in her eye and a dark pain to confirm that she knows what I mean. She knows everything. But she won't say, she won't admit it.

'This job is too tiring for you, for God's sake, why don't you ditch it, Aunt May?' I say in a low polite but reproachful voice, 'this isn't getting us anywhere and all you're doing is ruining your health – '

I stop abruptly. I just hit the wrong chord. I shouldn't have brought it up at all. It is not only the gruelling job that is ruining her health; it is the whole inertia of our lives, her sudden and disturbing dependence on sleeping pills, the loss of Uncle Ben and the nostalgia and depression which follows, the screams that come out of her room at night, the grave dark circles under her eyes, and if this is not enough – my coming late at home almost every night – something I can neither help nor divulge about, my face full of fresh new bruises everyday that can bother anybody, my irritable behaviour of late – and the list doesn't even want to end. But most importantly, it was my stubbornness, my overhauling guilt, my past, my curses – and me.

'You're too young to think of all this, Peter,' she says pushing back tears, 'just get ready.'

* * *

I hate cats.

I hate _black_ cats.

Amidst the expectedly uninteresting family party, I occupy a chair in a sparsely populated distant corner in front of the air conditioner and keep murmuring grumpily to myself. The cold air waves do not seem to affect my slightly- risen temper, while I have a darn good reason to be annoyed.

Not only did she gobsmack me in front of the police who only stopped short of shooting, and helped them get some plain stupid photographs of mine which ought to entertain the press and the public for at least a week, she somehow robbed me of my cell phone and wristwatch – something I never realised until I had been changing up for Aunt May's party – and left me feeling like a communication deprived sixteenth century sailor lost in the mid of the Pacific ocean, with no idea about what time of the night it might be and having nothing to tap on to pass the time. I decide next time on I will web her hands before they begin fiddling on my shoulder.

Meanwhile, as I drum on the arm of the chair with my fingers and continue cursing the thief, looking about and across the hall every other second and imagine Aunt May materialise out of the crowd and ask me to go home saving me from the boredom and the 1980's music banging right beside my ear, I think I just saw a figure peeking through at the doorway to the darkened banquet hall. All I see is a part of a flowing blue dress, bedraggled blonde hair, smudged red lips and large, hastily lined eyes. Had it been anyone else I would've considered myself mistaken. But I seem to know the figure just too well.

'Gwen?'

I get up to my feet and chase the figure which reduces into a shadowy silhouette as soon as I reach the entrance of the dark abandoned banquet hall. I try to catch up with her pace when she makes a blind turn towards a number of doors and disappears into one of them. I've been too far to know which one she chooses, but even as I peep into each of them, they appear adequately lighted, undisturbed and empty.

Gwen can't outrun me. Then is the figure an illusion, a direct consequence of my mind relentlessly revolving around her? I am not sure. But I do think my mind has had too much today to make a figure on its own.

The part of the building is so aloof from the chaotic crowd inside the reception hall that my light calculated footsteps clatter like sharp clear beats. I furrow my eyebrows and look through the moonlit aisle, and walking a few yards forth I find an extremely narrow pathway. I squeeze my way through, my breath uneven in the tension which has no roots, and my heart wildly throbbing as I grope in the dark, soon to conclude my supposedly wild-goose chase.

The narrow pathway leads to an unfamiliar lane. I breathe fully, inhaling the shivery humid air. I know it is about to rain. My eyes frantically search around for the figure in a blue flowing dress, the smudged, hauntingly red lips and the widened smoky eyes. Far down at the point where the lane turns right, I see a group of young men chatting and drinking beside the wall graffiti. I run to them.

'No – I dunno – we never saw anything like that I guess, but I bet I would've been worth a sight!' bellowed one of them drunkenly in reply to my inquiry. My fist clenches for a punch at his face, but I turn my back.

A drop of rain falls on my neck and launches a chill down my spine. I gaze forth and determinedly stiffen my jaw. Without a trail or a shadow, I follow on, looking for her. And round the corner I saw...

* * *

**So, I've just been through a set of nightmares in the name of exams, nearly got killed by thermodynamics, wrote all of this right now and my back's aching like hell. Now eat it, guys.**


	4. Claws

CLAWS

* * *

GWEN'S POV

* * *

Nothing. My world is warped into a time and space distorting shell, and all I see ahead and at my sides is a bleak barren 'nothing'.

I can feel something solid against my feet. A pavement. I am leaning against something hard. A wall. Or a door. I am sniffing. Droplets rush into my nostrils. I am drunk. I am drenched. Shuddering. The blue dress itches; the straps on my shoulders hurt. It is icy cold. I dispassionately run my fingers through the hair which has become a wiry tangled mess. The sky is dark and looming. The air smells of freshly mown grass and wet mud. Shivery. The circumstances are oddly familiar. But I can't remember why it senses like déjà vu. I can't remember anything at all.

Somebody taps me on the shoulder. 'Gwen?'

I jump in alarm. Blood pounds to my head. I know the voice too well for my own good. No. Shit. I am caught. I failed. I _just_ failed.

I turn cautiously. It's him. His wet face glistens in the scanty light of the lamp post. He is wearing formals. He has his hair combed back. He is shielding his eyes from the rain. His combed hair has started to fall apart now, coming around being how I've always remembered them as he wipes his face off the water. Some why, he gives me a sincere smile, one of the kinds somebody renders on meeting an old friend after ages. It is slightly befuddling for me to think that he doesn't look astonished or suspicious about my appearing up abruptly on a random road. His smile, moreover, seems a part of my memory and not something made out of flesh and blood. I reach out my hand and touch his face to convince myself. The texture and warmth under my cold pallid hands appear believable enough.

'Gwen, where've you been? I've searched all over for you...'

'Peter,' it is all I can utter, 'just go.'

I look down at the puddle of water. There is a certain level of guilt that holds me back from meeting him in the eye. I owe explanations, but can't figure out how I should explain. How should I start – or should I start at all?

'Just go where?'

'Leave me on my own.'

'What?' the sound of thundering muffles up the disbelief in his voice. He waits for an answer, his eyes boring a hole into my forehead while I keep staring at the puddle. The silence gets me fidgety and I want to run away, when he says, 'I'm not going anywhere. That isn't why I broke the promise.'

'Don't you even start with the promise, Peter.'

'I don't understand what you're trying to say.'

'You never did,' I snap angrily back at him.

'I never did?' he is half-confused and half-infuriated, not because of what I said, but because he has almost suspected what I didn't want him to. I look around irrelevantly. The details are blurry. Maybe because of the rain that doesn't seem to stop. 'Tell me, Gwen, what the hell's happening? When did you get back, and what exactly has been wrong?'

'Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine, thanks to your absence,' I speak scathingly.

'There're some guys in your life you can't really fool you know.'

'Just go, Peter, for Goodness's sake leave me alone!' I twist the doorknob my hand was resting upon and storm into the house beside, slamming the door shut at his face. The apprehension takes a toll on me, so much so, that I do not notice whose house I've crashed into without warning. I just look at the black and white chequered mat leading to a wide staircase under an unlit chandelier. My eyes don't go further for details. They just close tight as I tilt my head and lean on the wood.

I hear the throbbing his fists make on the door, 'Open it, goddammit Gwen! Just tell me what the matter is!'

'It's that I've been doomed!' I scream hysterically, the side of my face pressing against the door, 'Just go away!'

'Let me in!' he shouts again and again, thumping with his fists and scratching on the wooden door. I shake my head, holding back tears, and remain pressed against the door as forcefully as I can. The doorknob grows hot inside my sweaty palm. I feel giddy. Peter keeps on asking me to open the door, and the loud and firm voice he acquired in the beginning slowly transforms into soft pleading murmurs, but I stick to my stand, shrieking breathlessly, cursing him, abusing him, and telling him to just go away. His struggles with the door slowly subside and it descends on me that all I've done has only cemented his doubts about something being horribly wrong with me.

He could've easily broken the door. I guess why he didn't. Maybe he doesn't want to use his super powers, but why won't he? Maybe his powers have dimmed for a while. Maybe right now, he is just Peter Parker. Shy awkward high-school nerd Peter Parker. My Peter Parker.

I feverishly slide down against the wood and crouch on the cold floor, bowing my head on the knees and panting for breath. The room seems to have sucked out of oxygen. The sky cracks up. I hear the rain grow heavier. I expect someone will walk down the staircase soon and drive me out of the house. Pressure builds upon my eyelids. I can't hold them for long. I haven't slept since ages. I place my ear at the hinge of the door. I can feel the warm toasty air hit it. We are at peace, finally. I do not want to answer and he doesn't want to question anymore. He is a lot calmer now, and so am I, but he never quite thinks of leaving the doorstep.

'Look Gwen,' his words aren't words but mere breaths which continually hit my ear, 'I know there's something bugging you that you don't want to tell me, but uh –' he stammers and searches for words, 'but I just want you to know that everything will be okay. It's always this way, you see.' It is an unsure nervous assurance. But it _is_ an assurance.

'And also,' he adds, laughing, 'if you don't let me in, you'll get me a serious cold.' It puts a small smile on my face as well, while he continues, 'and yes, you will _– who are you_?'

I hear him alarmingly get up to his feet. The question isn't for me to answer. Both of us wait for a response but all my ears catch are footsteps – strong heavy footsteps growing louder with each passing second – without having the slightest sense of urgency. A minute later, they stop. And I hear something again. An abnormally fast thudding in my chest. A familiar cold husky sneer. The rain taps on. The sky thunders. Somebody clears his throat. And Peter has his question answered.

'Death.'

'NO! PETER!' I scream at the top of my lungs even before it dawns on me what is about to happen. My mind goes blank for a few seconds as my fingers hurtle up and down the door, not knowing what to do. Fear blasts in and I hastily begin twisting the doorknob, but it doesn't seem to get me anywhere. The door has stuck right at the wrong moment. Or probably it is locked from outside. I whack on the door with all my strength but it neither breaks nor opens ajar. I pull on the knob as hard as I can and twist it with such force that it comes off within a few seconds – and thus I finish off the last resort of my getting out with my own hands.

'Somebody help, SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP!' I keep yelling incoherently, panicking and shuddering, and searching for something or the other that can get me out, 'Oh god, oh god...'

The next moment, I freeze at the very place I stand, shivering from head to toe. I hear loud clunk of metal claws – and breaking glass – they are extremely distinguishable. And gruesome. The claws, the blows hitting muscles, his short sharp groans of pain and bewilderment about why he is being hit at all, the bleeding shrieking sky... something tells me that it is Peter who has locked the door. He doesn't want me to get out. He doesn't want me in trouble. I believe there is something odd with him, for he doesn't fight back either. Or maybe I was right. He has somehow lost his super humanity. Meanwhile, the sounds get worse. The sound of repeated stabs, of metal piercing through flesh and making gashes on the skin, an evil satisfied snarl, and Peter's ragged uneven and painfully audible breaths. They don't appear to stop.

'SOMEBODY HELP! PETER! NO!' I yelp again, this time running up the staircase. Midway I fall, but continue crawling in desperation, my knees burning. I wail but the house looks fairly unoccupied for my screams to be heard. I see a number of closed doors along the balcony. I punch through one of the glass panes to see if there is an open end from where I can jump out of the house, but there is none. I climb further up the stairs, but they seem to be running on a loop, reaching me to the same point again and again. The same balcony. The same doors. The same glass pane I broke with my bleeding fist.

Clueless, I return to the living hall, to where Peter is. There is still some sort of struggle going on outside. I can still hear his heavy panting and the metal clunks. Abruptly, something slumps against the door. And the intruding footsteps begin to fade away.

'Peter... Peter? Can you hear me? Peter, ANSWER ME PLEASE!' I can't help myself from sobbing aloud, hot tears burning through my cheeks and my eyes rubbed red and raw.

Blood seeps in from under the door, forming a shallow wide pool. It drenches the ends of my skirt as I kneel on the floor, soaks into the chequered mat and fills into the linings in between the spotless tiles. Deep red blood. My eyes bulge at the sight, I clasp my mouth, nails digging into my face. It is horrifying. A squeal escapes my throat.

I thrash on the door with my fists, regardless of the blood spots I make. 'Peter please, answer me! Hang on! Tell me you're okay...'

There is no answer. No movement. No unsure nervous assurance. No uneven ragged breaths.

* * *

It is pitch-black. I am sitting crouched on a different, mosaic floor. A spotlight falls over me. I see blood glistening on my knee. It is gushing from my own wound. I slowly straighten my leg. 'Ugh,' I grunt in pain. The pain is harrowing; it is squeezing my heart, gutting me from within. As usual, I feel something – something heavy and sinister – sitting on my shoulders and crushing me to the ground. My head is ten times its weight and spinning. My tears have dried up.

Nothing has ever been perfect. I've always hated those corny love stories. They contradict science and reality. They make way for unruly ungrounded fantasies. They create an abyss of desire, an abyss as thin as glass, for in the end everything is messy, shattered and smashed, and you need to plant your foot back into the insipid reality of science. I've always hated how those corny love stories are so perfect.

But then I realize it isn't perfection. Perfection is in the imperfection, however meaningless it may sound. Back then it sounded as well and good as any other phrase. Back then, things happened too fast for me to decipher. Within a few minutes. I was in trouble. At one fine night. On the rooftop. That was the point when I suddenly started believing in those corny love stories.

That wasn't it, though. My shoulders turned heavy with the load of secrets, lies and excuses. And an unsure fearful emotion. I grew into someone's confidante, and the unsure emotion bred further. I knew the emotion had some sort of twisted connection with those corny love stories, but I denied to myself. Until another fine night. I had been busy trying to figure out what happened on the bridge, scrolling through blurry, shaky, cell phone-captured videos. When he landed on my fire escape. When I saw blood in its true form. When the fear – fear of loss – grabbed me so tight that my eyes began brimming with tears. I tried to look cross but what I got in return was an apologetic smile, a kiss on the neck and a tale of troubles that had been buried for so long that they kept on gushing. I could say no more. That was the point when I suddenly started realizing that my life has become one of those corny love stories.

Old things, they are. But I'm surprised how well I remember the young boy – lanky, shy, dark-haired, with warm chocolate brown eyes, and oodles of charm hidden behind the lack of confidence and the evident discomfort amidst the crowd. How well I remember him – right from the Freshman Year – the grey-green jacket, the quiet sarcasm and the rebellious streak in the eye. A harmless stalker as he was, taking numerous photographs of mine under the impression that I've never known about them. A stupid grin crops up whenever I bring this subject in my mind, and I only figure out one step further how badly I once wanted to see those stills. It was quite weird to think, however, that even after all the secret photography business between us; it took three years to have a conversation which got past two words.

'You should go to the nurse. You might have a concussion,' I said, masking my slight concern with apathy, and trying to make it appear as a genuine advice. But the boy just stared at me, unfocused and sleepy, which gave me serious doubts whether he was actually suffering from one, 'I think what you did was great. It was stupid, but great.'

And he remained in a point-blank daze.

'What's your name?' I asked, smiling a little.

'You don't know my name?' his brows furrowed together into a frown and he spoke in a heartbroken voice, and it appeared so comical that I had to wrestle with my cheek muscles not to give out a wide grin.

'No I know your name. I just wanted to know if you know your name.'

'Peter,' he pauses and gapes for a while, 'Parker.' He nodded, and I nodded along, 'okay, okay,' then looked forth at the teacher. His awkwardness was so infectious that I somewhat began to laugh at myself. For once in my life, physics appeared too complicated and the letters on the board morphed into something I couldn't understand.

'You're Gwen, right?'

'Gwen Stacy.'

I listen to the clock tick. The noise reverberates from each corner and hits back at me. I plunge my fingers into my ears as the sound grows louder, fearing my eardrums might burst. But the clock ticks and ticks and ticks, louder and louder...

It is all over. I didn't unlock the door. And he didn't answer to me. He died.

_It can't be over. He can't die. He just can't die._

But he did. I didn't let him in. He died. It is all over.

Over.

I clutch my hair and pull onto them in agony. Chunks of hair entangle around my fingers. I writhe and scratch myself wildly. A stinging pain begins as I uproot my thumb nail. I scream. I scream without a pause. My throat burns in a way as if it has been slit. I scream for the stranger. It can't be over. The stranger can't kill him and let me live. I'm going down too. The stranger will have to return. 'Come back,' I call out for those murderous metal claws. I keep screaming; my screams now interrupted with short gasps and hiccups.

'Hey.'

This is too much for me. I begin crying like a child. I've abused my voice so much that the way it cracks now makes me wonder whether it will be gone for good. My heart is tired of throbbing so loud whenever this very frequency strikes my ear and reaches the brain. My memories have been robbed away. My mind has been stripped nude and I've lost the most basic of sensibilities. The clock ticks on. The spotlight burns into my back and my neck. The anger still smoulders inside me. I am tired. I am hurt. I am exasperated.

And I am _happy_.

It's his voice. It's him.

'Are you there, Peter?' I ask so very naively, like a kid playing hide-and-seek. In fact, it is exactly the way you play hide-and-seek, only intense and excruciating. It is like you go up behind the tree where you can see your friend's back sticking out, and a subtle ecstasy of triumph spreads over you but you want to keep the drama going, and build up the tension, you want to catch your friend off guard and so you say in an unsure suspicious voice, 'Is that really you out there?'

'Yeah,' he sighs. I can know he's smiling. He's exactly behind me.

'Here,' he grabs my hand tenderly and pulls me towards himself. I run out of inertia and move like a lifeless rag doll. But when I feel his rigid arms around me, there is a sudden upsurge of hope that runs through my body like fresh new blood. I can't help the pangs of déjà vu, thinking it is almost the same thing that happened at the cemetery. I don't care though; I snuggle into his warm jacket and rest my head on his chest. The rhythmic thudding of his heart is all I need to calm mine. It is a lullaby that doesn't need to be sung, and it is putting me to sleep. I cling to his shirt so tightly that I almost tear it at places. He doesn't bother, and keeps stroking my hair as usual. His chin nudges my forehead. He is there. He is _finally_ there.

'It's okay,' he whispers, 'everything's fine.'

Two things could've possibly happened. Either time has passed in a loop, or never passed at all. Suddenly I look up at his face; he is staring straight into the blackness. I see slight creases on his forehead and a confidence which has never been before. I sense something fishy, but ignore, and rest my head again as he begins stroking my hair, and time again starts to pass in a loop or never pass at all.

'All of that never happened, did it?' the words rumbled out of my mouth before I can stop them, 'the rain, the pavement, the house, the blood...' I never needed to bring this subject up, and begin mentally cursing myself thinking why I did. It was just a game my mind played on me, wasn't it, then how will he even know about it?

'Gwen, I don't really know what you're talking about.'

'I know, I shouldn't ... never mind, it was just a dream – '

'I don't have a control over what happens, it's you who does.'

'What – what's that supposed to mean – '

'It's you who controls everything, Gwen. It's your mind.'

'Huh? No, Peter, no, don't tell me you aren't real. I don't want to lose you again – '

'I belong to you, Gwen. I belong to your mind.'

'No, no, no – ' I hold onto him tighter than ever but he bursts in between my embraced arms – into something powdery – and all I see next is dust, sand and ashes, sticking to my body and piled into a heap and scattered all over the floor. Sand leaks through my clenched fists. It seems supernatural. I kneel on the floor and grope in the dark for a brush with his jacket again. My face is smeared with rough dry ashes. At one point, they feel somewhat symbolic. Sand pricks into the wound on my knee. It stings.

Maybe he is still there. Maybe he is just teasing me. Maybe he is standing slightly apart, watching the fun as I reach out for him. Maybe he wants to play hide-and-seek. Maybe, maybe...

'Peter, don't leave me here, Peter. Peter?'

* * *

'Having fun, are we?'

Here I am. Shoved back to reality. But I'm still not sure.

'Yes you are. Shoved back to reality.'

My body all of a sudden becomes aware of the pool of water in which it lay, and the cold ceramic underneath. I am in a bath tub. Probably I dozed off. I am not certain whether I am wearing anything other than the usual piece of cloth over my eye. It is embarrassing. But I first want my answers, some of which are far more important than my modesty. I push back the hair falling over my face and tie them into a hasty knot.

'You didn't – he didn't –' I start off but cannot complete, 'just tell me!'

'No,' the stranger hissed, 'not yet.'

'You've been playing a game with me.'

'Not really,' the stranger gives an odd snicker, 'you see I was apparently showing you something.' His hand touches my bare back. I flinch away, repulsed. For once and unlike last time, his hands feel softer, like that of a child, or a woman. I can know the other hand is on the geyser, since the temperature of the water has drastically risen within those few minutes.

'Showing me what?'

'Showing you what could've happened if I hadn't hid you from his eyes that night.'

'You told me to go there.'

'But not to stoop and show yourself. Certainly, a skin this delicate doesn't want another smother of claws.'

'Why do you blindfold me?' I ask almost inaudibly, so that if he doesn't catch it in the first time, I won't be repeating it.

'Ah, time to answer your questions,' his voice is rumbling with excitement like that of a child, and his fingers are tracing my back with an urgency like that of a mental patient. He breathes like me; he is at times alert and careful. Sometimes I sense him on my left, sometimes on right, and most of the time sitting right over my shoulders like burdened guilt and shame. It is scary. He continues,' All right, I blindfold you because I don't want you to see me. Isn't that obvious?'

'Why don't you want me to – '

'Because I look too vulnerable. And innocent.'

'Please let my family go.'

'That isn't a question, so no answer,' he keeps stroking my back. Adrenalin rushes to my blood every time his hands make a contact with my body.

'Why do want to,' I take a deep breath as tears well up again, 'kill Peter Parker?'

'I don't want to kill Peter Parker, just spider man.'

'Why?'

'Because of what he has done with my father.'

'What has he done?'

'Enough of questioning now, just go back to sleep,' he snaps in a cold voice, as though I've hit his raw nerve with my question. But a second later, regaining his typical air of chaos and madness, and a nasty flutter in the voice, he mutters, 'I have another set of nightmares ready for you. But don't worry; reality is always something with a difference. When I _really_ kill him, I'll make sure you have a look.'

* * *

**So I'm enjoying my days after exams, watching TASM and TDKR back to back, writing and uploading fanfiction. And drooling over Andrew Garfield. By the way I'd love to hear from you guys how the story's going. Review please!**


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